Matthew’s San Jose Juniper

This is my son’s San Jose Juniper. It was field grown from a cutting and I gave it to my son to try and add to his interest in bonsai. That’s still a work in progress!

This was it a few weeks ago. I had lifted it in for a quick record photo. I had plans to style it with Matthew at some point.

Then a few days ago this happened! Freak gust of wind and down it went..

The pot would have survived if it had missed the slate on the ground!

This forced my hand a little. I needed to get it into a new pot but wanted to give it a quick styling before I did that. My son wasn’t free to do it with me so I did a quick job on it yesterday and repotted it this morning.

I removed 2 branches.

 and about an hour later..

I changed the front slightly to bring the second live vein into view at the base.

This still leaves me with the biggest problem on the tree, the long straight section on the trunk after the first bend. The shari makes this a rather stiff problem to bend.

I repotted it into the only pot I had available that suited the tree. It’s a little big but will be ideal for developing the tree further. This wasn’t a full repot, just a transfer with a little soil removed to facilitate the new potting angle.

and this is it with a little virtual foliage added.

I’m not overly struck on the tree but my son is happy. Next year, once the tree is established in the new pot, I might tackle it again and take drastic action with that straight section by splitting the trunk and using raffia and heavy wire, add some movement. If it wasn’t for the smashed pot I might have tried it now. Ah well, there’s always next time…

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